


Tree Climbing

by ScoobyDoobyDrew



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Divorce, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mommy Issues, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Sadstuck, Tree Climbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScoobyDoobyDrew/pseuds/ScoobyDoobyDrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Rose! What are you doing!? Please come down!” The mother shouted to the little girl in the tree.<br/>The girl’s clear, young voice cut through the air in reply, “No! I’m not coming down till you let Papa come back!”</p>
<p>AU-ish scenario where there used to be a Dad Lalonde too. A Mom Lalonde fic. Sadstuck and probably too melodramatic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tree Climbing

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [plie, ma fille, ne te brise pas (mother loves you)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/588976) by [kyhc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyhc/pseuds/kyhc). 



 

            The martini sat undisturbed in its crystal container, once chilled but now perspiring with a light coating of condensation that had turned it into a heady lukewarm. The tired woman sat staring into the transparent fluid, eyes half-lidded and circled in fatigue. 11 parts gin to 3 parts vermouth, stirred and not shaken in a mixing glass (a preference she’d developed solely to spite the old movie cliché), and served straight in one of her probably-too-expensive-but-she’d-bought-them-on-a-whim-anyways crystal martini glasses. She knew the recipe by heart, and had known it for more years than she cared to count. The taste, the smell, the texture, the burn as it traveled down her throat, and the sweet, transient cessation of the eternal pounding headache that followed imbibing the liquor all were dear, familiar friends to her. But this morning she hadn’t managed more than the first sip. It had tasted like aging and venom.

 

 

            The morning had begun like it should have. Rolled out of the half-filled bed at 7, two aspirin capsules in front of the bathroom mirror for her inevitable hangover, several heavy gulps of water straight from tap, and a swig from the hip flask she kept stored in the medicine cabinet to get her going. Then, in front of the pink vanity, the process of making herself presentable for all of the people she was not going to see that day.  The bedhead was tamed, the dark lipstick was applied, and the worn wrinkles and worry lines were gently swept beneath a layer of make-up. Within 20 minutes the illusion was complete and gone was the love-worn, immature, drunken old bat and again appeared the aloof, elegant, sophisticated scientist. The scientist who was single again and okay with it. The scientist who needed no help raising a child. The scientist who never grappled with fear of failing utterly as she always had in the past. No, the confident scientist. The solitary, indifferent scientist. The capable scientist.  

            Then came the only reprise of her morning routine, waking up Rose. This had always been her job, and she cherished it. Every day it would go the same way. Crack open the door, and creep in, stepping over various octopus plushies and one distressingly dirty bunny. Stand beside the bed of her sleeping child, and, with breath held, lean down and kiss her on the forehead. Rose’s eyes would flutter open slowly; the purple, intelligent irises gazing up at her mother. It used to be that this was always followed with a smile and reciprocal kiss, but now she was lucky if she got to see the bright light glimmering in her daughter’s eyes before they hardened back into violet ice.

            This morning, she paused for a moment just outside her daughter’s room. A deep breath, then the door was quietly opened. Instantly she knew something was wrong. The bed was empty. No daughter.

            First there was the floating. The desperate, last attempt to convince herself that this was just a dream or a misunderstanding. The fleeting moment of weightlessness and complete lack of feeling. Then panic hit, a heavy punch straight to her midsection, nearly bringing her to her knees. The ability to breathe was lost momentarily, and her brain was unable to control any major muscle groups. Finally, after several agonizing seconds her feet responded to her brain’s desperate pleas and she ran across her daughter’s bedroom, flinging aside bedcovers and sheets, eyes swinging about the room desperately searching for some possible hiding spot concealing her daughter.

            “Rose! Rose, sweetie, where are you!?”

            She hurried out the door, and suddenly the hallway, with its rail-less edges, appeared as a deathtrap for a four-year-old to her eyes. Across the fatal hallway to the observatory, where Rose used to love to sit with her mother, gazing at the stars through the telescope. Empty. Back down the hall to the stairs, which now looked perilously steep to the frantic mother. Visions of her little Rose lying at the base of the staircase, her beautiful eyes vacant and staring-

            No! She shook her head of the thought, and ran down the stairs. The living room, the kitchen, both empty. The young girl appeared to be nowhere in the house. The desperate mother ran out the front door, to the right and across the yard to the charmingly cat-themed mausoleum. Yes, Rose must have simply gotten up early to pay her respects to her dearly departed Jaspers.

            But no, the grave was desolate, the funeral bouquet slowly rotting all by itself. And as the mother exited the mausoleum, her eyes brimming with tears and her heart pounding with fear, she spotted something in the distance, high above her rooftop.

            There, a defiant shadow against the bright light of the 7:45 sun, was a four-year-old girl perched in the highest branches of the tallest tree, right at the edge of the dense forest that surrounded their home. Her tired feet and panicked heartbeat forgotten, the sweat-drenched mother broke out into a run at her top speed. She raced across her home’s porch, the river beneath her feet roaring, and crossed the grass to the base of the tree that her daughter had climbed.

            “Rose!” Her strained voice called out, not making it far before being muffled by the thick foliage and heavy morning air, “Rose! What are you doing!? Please come down!”

            The girl’s clear, young voice cut through the air in reply, “No! I’m not coming down till you let Papa come back!”

            Then the little girl up in the treetop averted her eyes from her mother far below, and would make no more reply.

 

 

 

            And so, hours later, her mother sat desolate and desperate in her home, staring out the window at the distant shape of her daughter, now visible in the noonday light. At first, she had tried to explain; it wasn’t her fault, it was complicated, she didn’t have the ability to make Papa come back. But she was explaining quantum theory to Schrödinger’s cat, and Rose simply did not respond. At first she had been certain that little Rose’s will would bend and she would climb down on her own, but the minutes waiting at the foot of the tree for her to come down had turned into an hour and then that hour turned into two and three. And now, nearly five hours later, she simply found herself sitting uselessly in her home, while her daughter braved the warm summer day.

            Right beside the tree, completely untouched, sat a little plate with a turkey and Swiss sandwich on it, already being picked at by flies and ants, and a bottle of water. Her duty as a mother was to keep a roof over her daughter’s head, food in her stomach, and clothes on her body, and she couldn’t even do that. _Well, at least she isn’t naked_ , she mused while continuing to watch Rose up in the tree. She appeared to be reading, or perhaps, writing. The girl was startlingly intelligent for her age, able to digest books as if they were after-dinner mints, and ones that most children her age would not be reading for years yet. She also showed a heartening penchant for writing; everyday she would scrawl out a new entry in her journal, her childish handwriting already showing signs of future elegance. The most her mother ever wrote were short logs in tight, compact letters charting the movement of various celestial bodies.

            Yes, Rose certainly got her creative impulses from her father.

            The thought of Rose’s father sent a pang through her mother’s stomach, and she absentmindedly picked up the neglected martini glass beside her and took a sip of the slick, warm drink. _If only…_

_If only what?_ The elegant, sophisticated astronomer in her asked _, If only things had happened differently? If only you weren’t so hard to live with? You’re a scientist. You can’t concern yourself with impossibilities. You deal only with what is happening. The truth._

            And the truth was the only thing left to her, the only point of light she could see in the dark sky, was Rose.

            And now she may be losing her too.

 

 

 

            The sun was low again. The pines that scraped their tips into the belly of the sky cast long shadows over the landscape, slender black fingers painting the darkening ground. The determined woman’s shadow stood among these, stretched out across the earth as its source stood just on the edge of the lawn, looking up at the tree top. Her daughter still sat there, defiant. The woman was dressed as she almost always was, but she had eschewed her normal heels in favor of running shoes she had not worn in years, and she wore no jewelry and her only accessory was a less-than-attractive-but-very-practical shoulder bag. She was done with sitting and waiting.

            She walked over to the base of the tree, and looked up at it, pondering how best to approach it. The lowest branch was still a good six and half feet up, low for a tree this size, but high enough to be some difficulty for the woman. She adjusted the bag on her shoulder and then reached above her head for the low-hanging limb, grasping it with her right, and then her left, hands. A small hop, and one fast pull, and she had the branch beneath her armpits. She attempted to swing one leg up and over the branch, but her long, tight dress prohibited the movement and she ended up swinging all over like a fool. Grunting, she instead tried to use the tree trunk for a foothold, but her shoes simply slipped after a moment on the rough bark, and the resulting jolt caused her to lose her grip. A second later she was on the ground with no real idea how she had managed to fall so quickly. For a moment she thought she heard stifled giggling from far above, but when she looked up her daughter was staring into the setting sun, apparently oblivious to her mother below.

           The frustrated woman stood up, her butt now aching. She looked at her impractical, but stylish, outfit, now dirty from her fall. She had a milliard of these things; she wouldn’t miss one. She grabbed the hemline and ripped the damn thing right up the side to just above her knees. Her legs no longer bound so tightly, she stood up straight and eyed the branch once more.

            This time, she jumped, pulled, and swung all in one fluid movement, and only half a second later she sad straddling the problematic limb. There, the hardest part was done. Gripping the branch below her, she slowly stood up, using the trunk beside her to keep balanced. The branches now were plenteous and none nearly as high above her as the first had been. She grabbed the limb nearest to her head, and placed her right foot on a branch just a foot above the one upon which she stood. And then it was just hand over hand and foot over foot as she slowly ascended from one branch to the next. The setting sun’s light shot through the trees and got in her eyes and cast crisp, crisscrossing shadows on her sweating face. Her ripped, ruined dress was stained with dirt and perspiration, and her hands were sticky with sap off the tree, but still she kept scaling up and up.

            Within only a few minutes, a much shorter time than it seemed to the tired mother, she found herself only a few branches below her wayward daughter. She hoisted herself up onto one final, thick branch and leaned back against the trunk to rest.

            She looked for the first time that day, up close, at her daughter. The girl was still ignoring her mother, staring straight into the sun, which was just now beginning to dip its side beneath the horizon. She sat where two branches jutted out of the tree from the same spot, so that she could sit for hours without fear of falling. Her light blonde hair was a mess, matter in the back from resting her head against the tree, and filled with dirt and more than one twig. Her clothes had ripped and torn in several places and were covered in dirt. Her legs had numerous cuts, none of which were still bleeding at least. But nevertheless her face was fierce and she looked into the dying light without squinting. In her hand she grasped a half-empty bottle of water.

_Oh thank goodness, she’s been drinking water,_ thought the mother. She licked her chapped lips, wetting them, and spoke.

            “Rose.”

            Her daughter turned her head slowly and looked at her mother with almost a confused look as if noticing her for the first time. Her brilliant lavender eyes almost seemed to glow in the darkening evening. Out of her shoulder bag, the mother pulled a half a sandwich, cut into a triangle and hermetically sealed beneath layers of clear plastic wrap. She wasn’t sure what to say. Command her daughter to eat? Ask if she was hungry? Instead she said nothing and simply offered the sandwich to the girl.

            She eyed the sandwich for several seconds distrustfully, then slowly leaned forward and reached down to take the saran-wrapped food. She unwrapped it quickly, dropping her water between her thighs, and then took large, greedy bites, hardly stopping to chew.

            _Poor thing hasn’t eaten all day,_ thought her mother, still watching the little girl. Once she had finished devouring the sandwich, Rose unscrewed her water bottle and consumed what remained in a few large gulps. Then she looked at her mother again, biting her lip as if she had something to say but could not quite put into words. Her mother understood the girl’s wordless request, and reached into her bag and produced another sandwich half for her daughter. She had planned to eat this one herself, but a mother will always do whatever is best for her children.

            Once more Rose took the sandwich and unwrapped it, but this time she ate more slowly, chewed carefully and thoughtfully. The sun was now more than halfway below the horizon, and it was getting dark up in the treetop.

            Rose put the last piece of the sandwich in her mouth. Her mom sighed.

            “Rose.”

            The girl swallowed the last piece and looked at her mother once more. The woman sighed again and looked straight into the setting sun, now only a sliver peeking over the horizon, sending its last few rays into her eyes.

            “Rose, if I- if sitting up in this tree could make everything like it used to be, make everything good and right again, I would do it with you. I would wait up here for days, weeks, months, to make everything like it should be.”

            The sun finally dipped below the horizon completely, bun Rose’s mom couldn’t see it anyways through her tear-blurred vision.

            “…but it won’t.”

            The two sat in silence for several minutes more, letting the night overcome the twilight. Then Rose cleared her throat and spoke.

            “Mama, I want to go home.”

            The mother stood up shakily on the branch and reached up and grabbed her child. With her right arm, she picked up the little 4-year-old and clutched her to her chest. The girl wrapped her arms about her mother’s neck, and buried her face into her shoulder. Rose’s mom knelt down carefully, using her free hand to steady herself, and sat down on the tree branch again. She reached her left arm out to grasp a nearby limb, and swung her foot to a branch just below her, all while keeping little Rose still in her other arm. Then she began the arduous task of climbing back down. She only had her left hand with which to climb, it was dark, and her muscles and mind were already fatigued. But the tired mother kept lowering one foot and then the other, and going from handhold to handhold as she descended. Rose said nothing during the climb, simply kept her arms wrapped tightly around her mom’s neck.

            And finally, only a minute later, the exhausted woman reached the final branch, and hopped down, landing on her feet, but falling to her knees to absorb the blow. Rose jolted slightly, and squeezed her mother’s neck harder, but did not complain or make a sound. Her mother stood up slowly and shakily, and began walking across her yard. She did not allow herself to limp or walk tiredly, but strode carefully but confidently. She stepped back up onto the modern house’s strange porch, the river below now offering a comforting roar, like a rainstorm on a solid roof. She walked in through her front door, through her living room, up the stairs with no railing, down the hall, and into her daughter’s messy room. She laid the little girl down on her unmade bed, dirty clothes and matted hair and all, and pulled the covers over the child.

            “Goodnight Rose. I love you.”

            She kissed the girl on her forehead and turned and walked for the door. Just as she put her hand on the knob, she heard a small voice behind her.

            “I love you too Mama.”

            The dirty, aging, weary, elegant mother smiled, and opened the door and slipped out, closing it silently behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> So this idea has been bouncing around in my head for a really long time, and I felt the need to finally get it out on paper. Inspiration came mostly from a story prompt out of one of those "1001 Writing Prompts" books that my English teacher owns, partly from the fic "Plie, ma fille, no te brise pas (mother loves you)" by kyhc on this site, and partially from the song "A Man/Me/Then Jim" by Rilo Kiley. One part of this fic was inspired by the line "I'm sorry I'm hard to live with/Living is the problem for me," from that song. In addition the imagery of the sun "shooting through pine trees" came from My Slumbering Heart, also by Rilo Kiley. Basically everything I do was inspired by Rilo Kiley.


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